BAFTA Television Craft Awards 2013: Nominations Announced!

Doctor Who, 7/7 One Day in London, Call the Midwife, Amish: A Secret Life, Richard II, The Thick of It, Top Gear , The Fear and The London 2012 Olympics: Super Saturday each receive two nominations

London 2012-themed programming features across five categories

One of the most important things behind any final production, is all the craft and hard work that goes into making them look awesome. Today , BAFTA have announced the nominations for its annual British Academy Television Craft Awards, which honour the very best behind-the-scenes talentfrom television. This year’s ceremony will be held at The Brewery, in the City of London, on Sunday 28th April.

A diverse range of programmes compete in each category for the coveted BAFTA masks. Leading the way with five nominations is BBC Two’s five-part period drama, Parade’s End, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Rebecca Hall, Anne-Marie Duff, Rupert Everett and Miranda Richardson. BBC Two’s The Girl follows closely with four nominations, and stars Toby Jones as Alfred Hitchcock in a one-off drama that charts the acclaimed director’s obsessive relationship with Tippi Hedren, star of his 1962 film The Birds, played by Sienna Miller.

Also with four nominations each are BBC One’s Jack the Ripper drama, Ripper Street, which took viewers back to the East End of London in 1889, and The Hour,BBC Two’s drama set behind the scenes of a 1950s current affairs programme. A number of programmes have two nominations each: family drama Doctor Who; Call the Midwife, the 1950s medical drama based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth; the documentaries 7/7 One Day in London, which gathered testimony from people directly affected by the terrorist attack on London’s public transport network in 2005, and Amish: A Secret Life, which gave viewers an intimate portrait of Amish family life and faith; an adaption of Shakespeare’s Richard II; the political satire The Thick of it; the driving show Top Gear; and The Fear, starring Peter Mullan as an ageing gangster suffering from an aggressive form of dementia.

London 2012 is a strong theme throughout this year’s shortlist, featuring in three of the four nominations in the Director: Multi-Camera category: The London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony: Isle of Wonder; The London 2012 Olympic Closing Ceremony: Symphony of British Music; and The London 2012 Olympics: Super Saturday, which is also nominated in the Sound: Factual category. Furthermore, Channel 4 Paralympics is nominated in the Digital Creativity category, BBC One’s The Psychology of Winning picks up a nomination in Visual & Graphic Effects, whilst John Morton receives a nomination for Twenty Twelve in Writer: Comedy, a category introduced for the first time this year.

Other nominees in the Writer: Comedy category include Jo Brand, Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine for Getting On, Julia Davis for Hunderby, and Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche and Simon Blackwell for The Thick of It. Nominees in the Writer: Drama category are Shaun Duggan and Jimmy McGovern for Accused (Tracie’s Story), Gwyneth Hughes for The Girl, Sally Wainwright for The Last Tango in Halifax, and Tom Stoppard for Parade’s End.

Industry-renowned television director Hamish Hamilton will receive the BAFTA Special Award at the British Academy Television Craft Awards. The Award recognises Hamish’s ability to showcase unique live spectacles through multi-camera-based television directing, with millions watching his work on the Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the London 2012 Olympic Games. You can read more on his award by clicking along here!